“If the wind stopped blowing, we’d all fall down,” joked Pat Armstrong of the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. To a newcomer, the force that blows here is unlike any other experience of the relatively benign flow of air commonly referred to as wind. The wind here is often clocked at 80-100 miles per hour. It makes the eyes run with tears and rips even the most firmly placed watch cap off one’s head depositing it at an unseen distance far away. Surely such a force should be called something else altogether to note its greatness.

Indeed, it was the wind that brought the flames from summer forest fires this year closer to the reservation than anyone can remember, forcing folks from their homes, fleeing for their lives.

Remarkably, it was the same wind that also saved the people and their property. Changing course at the last possible moment, it diverted the fire away from the tiny community of Heart Butte on the Blackfeet reservation and its smattering of homes clinging stubbornly to the rugged hills just below the Butte.

It was as though an intangible force protected the people. Many people here believe that to be the case.